Functional drink brand Kill Cliff has announced a partnership with Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits to distribute the company’s line of CBD-infused beverages nationwide.
Speaking to BevNET on Monday, Kill Cliff CEO John Timar said the deal has been in the works for close to nine months as the companies completed “a lot of careful vetting along the way on compliance.” Upon completion, Southern Glazer’s will take the Atlanta-based brand’s five-SKU line of sparkling flavored CBD drinks (25 mg per 12 oz. can) into stores in 22 states.
“We fashion it as the largest CBD beverage distribution deal in U.S. history,” Timar said. “It’s the first one where you have a single distributor that has infrastructure across 44 states with a consolidated approach to reach millions of outlets. It’s a big deal and a big opportunity.”
Based in Miramar, Florida, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits is the country’s largest independent alcoholic beverage wholesaler. Over the past year, the company has expanded its presence in the CBD space; in April, the distributor announced it has signed on CENTR Brands, as well as manufacturer Canopy Growth, which launched its own CBD-infused drink line, Quatreau, in March. Southern Glazer’s has also looked outside of the beverage format: in May, it took on Martha Stewart’s line of CBD products (including gummies and oils), which is produced by Canopy.
Having established its audience mainly via e-commerce, transitioning the CBD beverage to brick-and-mortar stores is the next step in scaling Kill Cliff. According to a recent report by market research firm Brightfield, the CBD drink market grew by only 14% in 2020, compared to +1276% in 2019.
However, the report also projects the overall CBD market to rebound as consumers return to pre-pandemic shopping habits, with drinks expected to expand by about 70% this coming year. Kill Cliff moves its infused drinks through DSD houses like Glazer’s Beer and Beverage (Texas) and AlaBev (Alabama), and at stores such as convenience chains Yesway and Mapco.
Aligning with one of the country’s biggest beverage distributors will help Kill Cliff bridge the gap with retailers who were interested in taking the product but concerned about its ability to cross state lines and maintain consistent inventory, Timar explained. Along with “credibility and validity,” the Southern Glazer’s partnership will allow the brand to go back to those retailers with a secure route to market in place.
“We have this huge latent opportunity that we’ve not been able to tap into because of the lack of high-quality distribution,” he said. “While we’ve been thriving online, we have big retailers that can’t bring our product in because they don’t have a solution. The problem that this is solving for Kill Cliff is exactly that.”